Psychotherapy and Counselling are less familiar to many people than say, going to the doctor, or having a hearing test. How they work and what they achieve still seem to be a bit of an unknown quantity. And yet they do work, and are effective. There are many varieties of Psychotherapy in the world. I do Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, which is based on the conversation and interaction between myself and the client.

To an observer, a Psychotherapy session with me might look like an ordinary conversation, albeit it far more serious. The client talks, I listen. The client is free to say whatever they need to. As I listen, I try to formulate what I am hearing, both in, and under, the words. I feed this back to the client. When I do this, I sometimes add the context of the relationship the client and I have.

We talk for an hour, and then finish the session. We take up again at the same time the next week.

Psychotherapy doesn’t work in one session, in fact it can be a lengthy process. As the sessions progress, the issues that a client comes along with often change, or get moved on the priority list. Problems that have not been so noticeable before come up. So the talking, the questions and answers, open the space for more self awareness.

What do clients talk about?

Frequently I will try to bring the attention of the client to what is happening in the present, and, as I said before, in the relationship between us.

The therapy often comes back to the therapist client relationship. When we address the issues I have written about, and do it in the context of the working relationship, clients begin to experience change in their lives. It is as though the therapy is micro expression of how a client relates to the world, and life overall.

Client responses

The responses that clients have to therapy are extremely diverse. Some clients begin, from early in the work, to notice changes, and feel the benefits of the work. Others stay in a ‘State of Emergency’ until they reach a critical point, after which they begin to make progress. Still others have to make an act of faith, and hang in, sometimes for a very long time, until they begin to perceive progress. This can be painful and frustrating.

My overall experience is that therapy is hard work for both client and therapist, and the time frame is normally quite long. There is no quick fix that I am aware of, but the results of the effort can be very surprising and rewarding.

Telephone Therapy

I do telephone therapy for people who don’t live in the Brisbane area. As with face to face work, it is done on the same day and at the same time each week, and the cost is the same.

Mr. Henk Spierings
Psychotherapist Counsellor
Brisbane
0413 022 158